Carry the Torch, Pass the Knitting Needles
by TheVelvetRose 1120
Summary: Arthur is the patriarch of the Weasley family, therefore it is his responsibility to keep them together after the loss of one of their own. He struggles, but he will knit this family back together if he has to do it with his teeth. Although... maybe he and Molly can do it together. She was always better at knitting than him anyway. Post-Deathly Hallows.


**A/N. Hello there! I am rather new to the fandom, having only read and seen Harry Potter last year. I'm re-reading it this year via audiobook, but I'm still on Chamber of Secrets so forgive my lack of knowledge in this universe. I'm sorry if I got any facts or something like that wrong or if the characters are OOC. This just kind of came to me and I was tempted to write it - so I did. Please tell me what you thought of my first foray into Harry Potter fanfiction :) I would really appreciate it.**

 **Disclaimer - I think we all know that I don't own anything, especially not Harry Potter. Also, you have been warned: sadness ahead.**

Arthur Weasley sat on the roof, just… staring. He had one knee propped up with his elbow resting atop it, the other leg swinging over the edge. His chest rose and fell. He blinked every so often. He had his head tilted up towards the night sky, wondering. It was a breezy, starry night. He sat there, still in his work clothes, thinking. He sat there for so long that he thought the moon was in a different position the next time he blinked back to reality.

A door creaked open behind him. Faintly, he registered the sound, but he didn't acknowledge it. Just continued staring. Footsteps. Slightly heavy. Tentative. They came closer. Skirts brushed against the floor. _Molly_. "Hello, love," he greeted, not moving.

She sounded far away. She probably was. "Arthur," she started. She sounded scared.

He turned his head slightly to glance at her. She stood there, clutching a shawl tightly as the wind blew her curls into her face. She was looking at him with an expression that he rarely ever saw. He turned back to the stars.

"Arthur," she said again, a bit louder. "What are you doing on the roof?"

He exhaled. "Thinking," he replied honestly.

There was a pause where all they heard were the crickets and creatures of the night. "About what?" She asked quietly, still halfway across the roof.

"Fred," he answered simply.

He heard her sharp intake of breath. "What about… Fred?" She forced his name out; forced herself to accept the facts. Refuse denial. Be strong for her children.

"How close we are," Arthur said. "I take one step and we'll be together again."

Molly lost her breath and gasped at the same time, choking on her indecision of how to react. "Arthur-!"

"I'm not actually going to do it, Molly, dear," he assured, looking down at the ground far below. "My family's too large to leave behind. How will they ever make do without me?" He flashed her a half-hearted smile and returned to his stargazing. "I'm just thinking. We're so close, aren't we? Just one step. One Muggle weapon. One flick of a wand. That's all it takes. And yet… we couldn't possibly be any further even if we tried." He looked down again, but not at the ground. He held something in his hand, fingering it in a position that Molly couldn't see, especially in the dark. "He's so close, Molly, but so far. Perhaps it's like one of those things the Muggles like to say. What was it? Whether the glass is full or empty? Or maybe it was half-full/half-empty? Yes, that makes more sense." He nodded to himself. "I think… I think I like my glass half-full."

"Arthur, what are you on about?" Molly's voice trembled ever so slightly.

Arthur sighed, pocketing the trinket. "Fred can never truly be gone. He's always close to us. So close. Yes, he is far away, too, but if we choose to focus on the closeness, I think this family can pull through – I _know_ we can." He swung his legs around and sat with his ankles crossed, his back to the edge of the roof. He looked at his wife while holding his calves. He saw her expression. Saw how terrified she looked of moving. Like if she took one step, he'd jump and leave her just like Fred.

It would be easy, too. Just… let go. Slouch. Tilt backward. Close his eyes. No effort.

It took effort not to cry. It took effort to be strong. It took effort to be the one to hold his family together. But when that effort paid off, there could be no better reward than to see the Weasleys happy again. Arthur had never been one to give up. Molly knew this. She'd said that it was one of the reasons that had attracted her to him when they were at Hogwarts. Ahh, those were the days.

He grunted, pushing himself to his feet. He was getting a bit old, now that he thought about it.

If only he could have seen all of his children grow older than him.

He made his way over to Molly and slid his hands into hers. She looked rooted to the spot, staring at him as if she was on the brink, teetering between confusion and understanding. "I miss him, Molly," he confessed, staring down at their intertwined fingers. "I miss him so much." He slouched forward and buried his face in her hair. Tentatively, her arms came up around him and then they were holding each other together in their grief.

That was when Molly truly realized what had happened. Her husband had been so strong. When the Battle of Hogwarts had ended, he'd been the one to stand above and do head counts and make sure no one hurt themselves in their grief. In the following days, he was the one with the reassuring words and the shoulder to cry on (and his chest and his other shoulder until they were one big Weasley pile of hugs and tears). He was the one who spoke first at Fred's funeral.

Arthur had been pulling his fractured family together as best he could. There was a hole in their Weasley jumper and Molly was too grief stricken to knit it over, so Arthur had picked up her knitting needles. Instead of knitting a patch overtop, he wove the strands closer together as tightly as he could, perhaps using a little magic along the way.

But the strands were pulling, resisting, insistent on keeping the hole as a reminder of what they'd lost. So that they'd never forget. But how could they forget? Even as Arthur tugged them all back together, they would be bunched around the middle. Smaller. Wrinkled. Different. They would never forget Fred, never. No matter what happened.

So Arthur managed to yank his family back together with painstaking slowness and a patience she had always admired. As he pressed his face to her hair, she knew that he was putting down the needles for a break. He couldn't knit forever.

When he'd turned to face her completely, still sitting on the roof, he'd let her see. The moon and the stars glinted in his eyes and she saw the grief there. She knew it had always been there. Everyone knew. But this was the first time she really _saw_ it; saw how all-encompassing it was. Saw how much of it he was holding back. Saw what he didn't let his children see.

He was heartbroken. Bleeding from the inside out. He looked as if Nagini had bitten him once more, draining his blood from him slowly and painfully. She could still remember how pale and close to death he looked. But he had been strong and positive and had bounced back so quickly.

This was the opposite. On the outside, he was fine. A little worse for wear, but that was to be expected of everybody. On the inside, he was a raging storm of grief and pain and anger and loss that he didn't know how to sort through. So he focused on the pain of his family instead.

He and Bill talked long into the night over tea, when their wives and the others were all in bed.

When Charlie came back, he and Arthur had had a row not unlike the one with Percy. But emotions were running high and Arthur wasn't going to make the same mistake. The fight had ended with Charlie collapsing on the couch in exhaustion and Arthur tucking him in and bidding him goodnight. The next morning at breakfast, the two of them acted as if the row had never happened and it was never mentioned again.

Percy was… complicated. He'd been drowning in an ocean of something like a mix between guilt and fear and perhaps some self-loathing, though he buried all of that beneath another ocean of false arrogance and uptight behaviour. Though that often fell flat when George, poor George, never called Percy out on it. Not anymore. Arthur had forced his own spine straight and had a long chat with Percy. This "chat" happened every day for several weeks. Molly had lost count. Until finally, one day, Percy's lips twitched at something George had said.

It was a start.

George… Arthur had tried to console him on multiple occasions, but George had locked himself in his room and refused to come out (that any of them could see) for days. A week passed and Arthur practically dragged him from the room and plopped him down at the table, kicking and screaming. Arthur had a lot of practice with kicking and screaming children, though he was usually used to handling more than one at a time. George was still nowhere near consoled, but he ate meals with the family now. Which was something. Even if he hardly ever said anything except a quip every so often.

Ron had started spending all of his time with Hermione. More so than usual. He'd practically gone to live with her, he spent so much time with her. But when he _was_ home ("home" being a relative term meaning "with the rest of the family"), Arthur made it a point to have Ron participate in the conversation somehow. It seemed to help. Once Ronnie launched into a story, the others were mostly attentive and they were all distracted. For a few minutes.

Ginny had been the easiest to comfort. Every little thing reminded her of Fred and she'd spent many nights crying into her father's chest, begging for her brother back. Arthur endured these with love and care and his own heartbreak, rubbing her back and soothing her as best he could. Until one day, she didn't cry at all. And then another day. And then she went crying to Harry. And then she didn't.

Harry had been in a state of shock for quite some time. He would wander around, sticking close to Ginny and Ron, and whenever something reminded him of Fred, it was like he'd forgotten what had happened and had to be reminded. Arthur was the understanding one, making sure that Harry never felt awful about it.

Hermione had danced around the edges of the family, unsure of her place in their grief. She and Fred hadn't been close, but they had been friends and she had been sad, but she'd never had a sibling. She didn't understand what the others were feeling – not exactly. Molly and Arthur made her feel as welcome as possible, but Arthur had been the one to take Hermione back to the tombstone. When they'd returned, Hermione walked with a little more confidence and didn't tip-toe around the others as much.

Arthur even hugged Fleur once, who had burst into tears while Bill was running an errand. Arthur hadn't even been sure the crying was about Fred (he suspected it was more of a cumulative pile of stress than anything).

Then there was Molly, who snuggled into his chest at night and clutched him tightly. She'd nearly lost him once. She _had_ lost Fred. She never wanted to be left alone. She wanted someone to be by her side wherever she went because she feared that if she wasn't with the others, something would happen to them. Arthur obligingly followed her around, letting his hand be gripped by hers fiercely whenever something surprised her. He reassured her without complaint and let her rant, sometimes for hours on end.

And at the end of the day, he went to bed curled around her tightly, as if reassuring _himself_ that she was still there. Arthur had never _been_ hugged. Not since Fred, anyway. He'd never cried. Not once. Not that Molly had ever seen and she spent every second she could with him. He'd never been the one that needed comforting.

So this moment, him burying his face in her scalp and letting her see the pain he hid from everyone else, was so vital to his recovery from their son's… their son's… Fred's… _death_. She squeezed him as tightly as she could, making sure to convey that she was here for him. She was his Mollywobbles and she would be here for him when he needed her – no exceptions.

She picked up the knitting needles once more.


End file.
